CHAPTER 2
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. What was the first form of musical and theatrical entertainment regarded by European audiences as distinctively American in character?
a. Roller derby
b. Blind man’s bluff
c. The minstrel show
d. Line dancing
e. Square dancing
Answer: c
Section Reference: The Minstrel Show
2. Which white actor invented the minstrel character “Jim Crow”?
a. Charles Ives
b. Hugh Jackman
c. John Philip Sousa
d. Andrew Jackson
e. Thomas Dartmouth Rice
Answer: e
Section Reference: The Minstrel Show
3. Who was the most influential songwriter of American popular song during the nineteenth century?
a. Michael Jackson
b. Stephen Foster
c. Jeanie Brown
d. Montgomery Ward
e. Sears Roebuck
Answer: b
Section Reference: An Early Pop Songwriter: Stephen Foster
4. Which of the following became the conductor of the U S Marine Band?
a. Dan Emmett
b. Zip Coon
c. John Philip Sousa
d. Stephen Foster
e. T. B. Harms
Answer: c
Section Reference: Dance Music and Brass Bands
5. Which white banjo virtuoso led the Virginia Minstrels?
a. Thomas Dartmouth Rice
b. George Washington Dixon
c. Daniel Emmett
d. Edgar Meyer
e. Alison Kraus
Answer: c
Section Reference: The Minstrel Show
6. Which of the following is true about songwriter Stephen Foster?
a. He led the Florida Minstrels.
b. In addition to being a songwriter, he was a master brewer and created the recipe for Foster’s Premium Ale.
c. He wrote the song “After the Ball.”
d. He embraced both genteel traditions and less highly regarded but popular traditions such as minstrelsy.
e. He was known for his flashy guitar solos.
Answer: d
Section Reference: An Early Pop Songwriter: Stephen Foster
7. Which of the following was an influential ragtime pianist and composer?
a. Scott Joplin
b. John Philip Sousa
c. F. Tur D’Ball
d. Enrico Caruso
e. Bill Bailey
Answer: a
Section Reference: Scott Joplin and “Maple Leaf Rag”
8. Who invented the phonograph?
a. Thomas Alva Edison
b. Mable Leif
c. Hughie Cannon
d. Charles K. Harris
e. Witt Mark
Answer: a
Section Reference: The Rise of the Phonograph
9. By the turn of the twentieth century, what form of popular theater became the most important medium for popularizing Tin Pan Alley songs?
a. Minstrel shows
b. Public marches
c. Vaudeville
d. Broadway musicals
e. Operetta
Answer: c
Section Reference: The Birth of Tin Pan Alley
10. Which is the best definition of “strophe”?
a. The opening “hook” of a given piece of music
b. One repetition of verse-and-chorus within a song’s structure
c. The practice of wildly modulating pitch on certain words for added emotional effect
d. A popular dance style in three-quarter time
e. Improvised section within a larger piece of music
Answer: b
Section Reference: Listening Guide: “After the Ball”
<Begin TF questions>
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 11 11)
The minstrel show is the first form of musical and theatrical entertainment to be regarded by European audiences as distinctively American in character.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, The Minstrel Show
Correct a.# True
Incorrect b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 12
12)
Thomas Dartmouth Rice was the first white performer to establish a wide reputation as a “blackface” entertainer.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, The Minstrel Show
Incorrect a.# True
Correct b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 13
13)
Stephen Foster was the first person in the United States to make a living off the money he earned at concert performances.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, An Early Pop Songwriter: Stephen Foster
Incorrect a.# True
Correct b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 14
14)
Ballroom dancing focused more on uniformity and restraint than on improvisation or the expression of emotion.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, Dance Music and Brass Bands
Correct a.# True
Incorrect b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 15
15)
The contra dance, which first rose to popularity in the United States in the 1820s, was initially regarded as an “indecorous exhibition” of intimacy between men and women, and as a threat to public morality.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, Dance Music and Brass Bands
Incorrect a.# True
Correct b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 16
16)
Tin Pan Alley was the center of the commercial songwriting and publishing business in Chicago from approximately the 1880s through the mid-twentieth century.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, The Birth of Tin Pan Alley
Incorrect a.# True
Correct b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 17
17)
The job of song pluggers was to promote the sheet music for popular songs produced by their various companies.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, The Birth of Tin Pan Alley
Correct a.# True
Incorrect b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 18
18)
The emergence of ragtime in the 1880s evidenced the growing influence of African American styles on popular music.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, The Ragtime Craze: 1896-1918
Correct a.# True
Incorrect b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 19
19)
The best-known composer of ragtime music was an African American composer and pianist named Scott Joplin.
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, Scott Joplin and “Maple Leaf Rag”
Correct a.# True
Incorrect b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: True/False
Title: Chapter 2, Question 20
Thomas Alva Edison invented the flat gramophone disc in 1887.
20)
Feedback:
Section reference: Chapter Two, The Rise of the Phonograph
Incorrect a.# True
Correct b.# False
END OF QUESTION
Type: fill-in-blank
Title: Chapter 02 - Question 21
21) “ _______, ” performed by Thomas Dartmouth Rice, became the first international American song hit.
Feedback:
Section reference: The Minstrel Show
a.# Jim Crow
b.#
END OF QUESTION
Type: fill-in-blank
Title: Chapter 02 - Question 22
22)
Until the early twentieth century, social dancing among white Americans was dominated by offshoots of the _______ dance, or country dance, tradition (in which teams of dancers formed geometric figures such as lines, circles, or squares).
Feedback:
Section reference: Dance Music and Brass Bands
a.# contra
b.#
END OF QUESTION
Type: fill-in-blank
Title: Chapter 02 - Question 23
23)
The _______ is a dance in triple-time with a strong emphasis on every third beat.
Feedback:
Section reference: Dance Music and Brass Bands
a.# waltz
b.#
END OF QUESTION
Type: fill-in-blank
Title: Chapter 02 - Question 24
24)
_______ was the center of the commercial songwriting and publishing business in New York from approximately the 1880s through the midtwentieth century.
Feedback:
Section reference: The Birth of Tin Pan Alley
a.# Tin Pan Alley
b.# Tinpan Alley
END OF QUESTION
Type: fill-in-blank
Title: Chapter 02 - Question 25
25)
In the 1890s the first “nickelodeons” machines that played the latest hits for a nickel were set up in public places. (These machines later became known as “_______.”)
Feedback:
Section reference: The Rise of the Phonograph
a.# jukeboxes
b.# juke boxes
END OF QUESTION
<Begin Short Answer Questions>
Type: Essay
Title: Chapter 2: Question 26
26) What role did Thomas Dartmouth Rice play in the rapid increase in minstrelsy’s popularity?
Feedback: Thomas Dartmouth Rice (1808‒1860): white actor born into a poor family in New York’s Seventh Ward Song “Jim Crow” (1829): became an international American hit. Cakewalk: Africanized version of the European quadrille, first developed by enslaved people as a parody of the “refined” dance movements of their white owners. Syncopation: “irregular” rhythms that later influenced ragtime. Explosion of
blackface performance: mixed-race audiences, Black and mixed-race performers. Dialect: hybrid dialect somewhere between Black and white to make fun of pretentious politicians and social elites. Toured England in 1830s: first American-born performer to export music that was perceived abroad as quintessentially American in style and content. “Zip Coon” (1834): “Ethiopian” song hit in verse-chorus ballad form, more closely related to Irish or Scottish than African American song; melody adopted by both Black and white country fiddlers, rearranged, and given the title “Turkey in the Straw.”
Section reference: The Minstrel Show
END OF QUESTION
Type: Essay
Title: Chapter 2: Question 27
27) Explore the contributions of Stephen Collins Foster to American popular song.
Feedback: Foster is regarded as the first important composer of American popular song, he produced around 200 songs. Likely the first person in the United States to make his living as a full-time professional songwriter. Livelihood from fees and royalties from sheet music sales: “Oh! Susanna,” “Old Folks at Home,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” etc. Influenced by ballads, Italian light opera, Irish and German songs, minstrel songs Foster’s compositions: heard in saloons, theater productions, variety shows, band concerts. Success from social and technological factors: songs performed by minstrel troupes on tours; expansion of sheet-music publishing business; rapid growth of public music education, trend encouraged by the domestic production of cheap pianos. Copyright law: Foster sold “Oh! Susanna” to a music publisher but never saw any money from the subsequent sales Law covered the rights of music firms but not those of the composers of songs bought by the firms.
Section reference: An Early Pop Songwriter: Stephen Collins
END OF QUESTION
Type: Essay
Title: Chapter 2: Question 28
28) Describe the relationship between dance and American popular music from its early days to the beginning of the twentieth century.
Feedback: American popular music tied closely to dance and social functions of dancing. Earliest examples of published dance music: modeled on styles popular in England Grand ball: modeled on the aristocratic gatherings of European royalty; public venue for Americans who desired to demonstrate their refinement and knowledge of high culture; ballroom dancing focused more on uniformity and restraint than improvisation or the expression of emotion. Shift to couple dancing, waltz: rose to popularity in the U.S. in the 1820s, initially regarded as “indecorous exhibition” and a threat to public morality, but by the end of the century was the ultimate symbol of sophistication and romance. Nineteenth century: continual feedback between “highclass” and “low-class” dance styles Diversity of American popular dance: waves of European immigrants who brought distinctive dance styles; influence of African American dance beginning in the 1830s, becoming the dominant force in American popular dance in the 20th century
Section reference: Dance Music and Brass Bands
END OF QUESTION
Type: Essay
Title: Chapter 2: Question 29
29) What role did John Philip Sousa play in the surge in popularity of American brass bands?
Feedback: John Philip Sousa (1854‒1932) Most popular bandleader from 1890s to World War I. Known as America’s “March King.” Son of a trombonist in the U.S. Marine band. Became conductor of U.S. Marine band and later formed a “commercial” concert band that toured widely in America and Europe. Made two dozen hit phonograph records. Toured constantly with band: more than 50 members, created a sensation across the country One of the first musicians to negotiate royalty payments with publishers, insisting on a percentage of total sales of his compositions. Advocate of copyright reform “Business bands”: important part of American music business
Section reference: Dance Music and Brass Bands
END OF QUESTION
Type: Essay
Title: Chapter 2: Question 30
30) What was vaudeville and how did it impact the spread of American popular music?
Feedback: Vaudeville: popular theatrical form descended from music hall shows and minstrelsy. Important medium for popularizing Tin Pan Alley songs. Consisted of a series of performances by singers, acrobats, comedians, jugglers, dancers, animal handlers, etc. Performers promoted songs in performance, with sheet music sold at local music stores. Performers: had to provide their own transportation, lodging, costumes, songs, and arrangements, and were dependent on the whims of booking
agents, to whom they paid substantial fees. Racially segregated: separate chain of theaters for Black performers and audiences.
Section reference: The Birth of Tin Pan Alley